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Israel’s defence minister has reaffirmed the country’s intention to occupy a swath of Syria territory beyond Israel’s contested northern borders for an “unlimited amount of time” during a visit to the strategic Mount Hermon.
“The IDF is prepared to stay in Syria for an unlimited amount of time. We will hold the security area in Hermon and make sure that all the security zone in southern Syria is demilitarised and clear of weapons and threats,” Israel Katz said on a visit to the peak on Wednesday.
After the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December, Israeli forces moved to control a 400-square-kilometer demilitarized buffer zone in Syrian territory. The zone, which lies between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, was created by the UN after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, or Ramadan war as it is known in Arabic. A UN force of about 1,100 troops has patrolled the area since then.
Assad was ousted by a coalition of rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has its origins in extremist Islamist organisations including both al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
The new president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, says he severed ties with extremist groups years ago and has promised a representative government and religious tolerance.
However Israel officials believe the new Syrian regime and other armed groups active in the country remain a potential threat.
Katz said the Israeli deployment on Mount Hermon was necessary to defend Israeli communities in northern Israel and on its contested borders.
“Every morning when [al-Sharaa] opens his eyes at the presidential palace in Damascus, he will see the IDF watching him from the peak of the Hermon, and remember that we are here and in the entire security area of southern Syria, to protect the Golan and Galilee residents against any of his threats and those of his jihadist friends,” Katz told reporters who accompanied him, according to the Times of Israel.
Israel also wants to disrupt Iran’s ability to smuggle weapons through Syria to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Israeli incursion into Syria in December sparked widespread international condemnation, with critics accusing Israel of exploiting the fall of the Assad regime for a land grab. Israel still controls the Golan Heights that it captured from Syria during the six-day war (1967) and later annexed – a move not recognised by most of the international community.
The Times of Israel reported that the Israel Defence Force (IDF) has established nine military posts inside Syrian territory, including two on the 2,800m summit of Mount Hermon. Some are in newly fortified former Syrian army positions.
In a speech last month, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he wanted “the complete demilitarisation of southern Syria”.
Israeli warplanes have launched hundreds of strikes since the fall of Assad to destroy military equipment left by the former regime, and officials have described an extensive new zone stretching across much of southwestern Syria as territory that Israel will ensure is “demilitarised”. A new wave of attacks struck targets in southern Syria earlier this week.
Israel had also offered protection to Syria’s Druze minority, many of whom live close to Israel’s borders. There is also a substantial Druze population within Israel.
Some analysts have warned that Israel risks becoming mired in a complex conflict in Syria, possibly one recalling the country’s costly, long term occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.
Col (ret) Dr Jacques Neriah, an Israeli analyst, said: “I hope that we don’t have in mind an idea like we had in Lebanon. We were drowning in the Lebanese swamp for more than 20 years. Let’s hope we won’t be drowning in the Syrian swamp... We said our intentions were only temporary and now we hear [something] different.”
Al-Sharaa has repeatedly said he will not allow Syria to be used as a base for attacks on Israel.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said on Wednesday that a least 1,383 civilians had been killed in “executions by security forces and allied groups” after violence broke out last week in the coastal heartland of the Alawite minority, to which toppled president Bashar al-Assad belongs.
